Snippets: Web Storage, VP8, Objective-C Style, Dead Code

Web Storage API: The W3C have moved the Web Storage API to the Recommendation stage which means its pretty much done and in as a standard. The API gives web applications a local key/value store in the browser. The user typically has to grant permission for storage and its strictly limited to a maximum of between 2.5 and 10MB though that has been abusable. Web Storage should though provide a handy tool for application developers. The only problem is that the EU “Cookie law” was worded to cover a variety of local storage methods; whether the permission request and lack of third party access pass muster with legal folk we will see…

VP8 vs Nokia: It seems Nokia lost out in German courts where it was bringing a case against HTC that included a claim that VP8 infringed a Nokia patent. According to a blog posting from the WebM project, a Mannheim court ruled it didn’t infringe. Whether this will change the state of play as Google tries to get VP8 adopted by the IETF and others is unclear though; Nokia presented them with far more than one patent claim.

The New York Times Style Guide: No, not for writing articles, but for Objective-C. It’s been developed in-house for their iOS app developers and popped online via Github under an MIT licence.

Bring out your dead: Dead code that is. One way of doing this is with a dead code detector and Oracle’s Geertjan Wielenga has a guide for NetBeans users which shows how to use his dead code detector plugin over a range of different project types.